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Part of
Egophoricity
Edited by Simeon Floyd, Elisabeth Norcliffe and Lila San Roque
[Typological Studies in Language 118] 2018
► pp. 225–267

Chapter 8
Morphological innovations in Mangghuer and Shirongolic

Reconstructing the formal emergence of the subjective vs. objective distinction

| University of North Dakota and SIL International

Egophoric systems with binary indexing distinctions have been described for a number of languages of Northwest China’s Amdo Sprachbund. These systems are conceptually extremely similar, though the distinctions have been disparately labeled direct vs. indirect, self person vs. other person, volitional vs. non-volitional, etc. Published descriptions of these systems generally focus on their semantic/pragmatic characteristics, and little has been said about the historical origins of the morphological markings which they employ. In this paper I trace the formal emergence of the binary opposition, which I refer to as a distinction between subjective and objective perspectives, in Mangghuer and other Shirongolic languages. Comparative Mongolic evidence, along with evidence from other Amdo Sprachbund languages, enables me to identify four historical processes in the development of the synchronic Mangghuer system. Three of these processes clearly involved reanalyses of inherited Mongolic verbal morphology, while one involved phonetic material of uncertain provenance. An important observation is that in nearly all of the historical changes described here, including those found in Mangghuer and those that we observe in other languages, the objective category is singled out as the formally more marked member of the subjective vs. objective opposition.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Background
    • 1.1Subjective and objective in Mangghuer
    • 1.2Goals of this study
    • 1.3The Amdo Sprachbund
    • 1.4Mongolic language varieties
    • 1.5Egophoricity in Amdo Tibetan
  • 2.Four historical processes
    • 2.1Process 1: The Mongolic terminative suffix is reanalyzed as a perfective direct evidential
      • 2.1.1Perfective forms in Tibetanized Shirongolic
      • 2.1.2The source morphemes
    • 2.2Process 2: The subjective vs. objective semantic distinction spreads to all finite declarative environments, indicated by means of an i vs. a vowel distinction
      • 2.2.1Declarative endings and copulas in the Tu languages
      • 2.2.2Possible source morphemes
      • 2.2.3Similar systems in other Amdo Sprachbund languages
    • 2.3Process 3: The durative interrogative suffix is reanalyzed as a marker of objective interrogatives
      • 2.3.1Interrogative endings in Mangghuer and Mongghul
      • 2.3.2The source morpheme
      • 2.3.3Interrogatives in other Amdo Sprachbund languages
    • 2.4Process 4: The narrative suffix is reanalyzed as a marker of objective declaratives
      • 2.4.1Objective marking in Mangghuer
      • 2.4.2The source morpheme
      • 2.4.3The narrative in other Shirongolic languages
  • 3.Conclusions and implications
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.118.08sla
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